This is when we find a local alum (could be you next time!), and take them out for lunch! While we’re at lunch, we chat about all sorts of stuff, including what they’re up to, and what they’re looking forward to!

This week, we met up with one of your classmates, Matt Marshall ’18, who graduated this May with a Forestry degree from the Rubenstein School!

We caught up with him after work for a snack (a big snack) at Bueno Y Sano in South Burlington.

We got to chatting with Matt, and learned more about his summer so far – from getting into lots of board games to continuing his job search – he looks like he’s having a pretty good summer so far!

More from him later in the post, but first, pictures of the most important thing – the food.

^^That’s Kathryn’s Burrito Bowl – not served in a bowl, but just as delicious as if it had been.

Everyone else grabbed a burrito, some with Chipotle chicken, some with steak, all with the spicy sauce.

Now back to Matt:

How have your first couple months out of college been so far?

My first couple months out of school have been good so far. I went on a road trip to the Summer Camp Music Festival with some friends and spent a few days in Chicago afterwards.

I’ve been to the live show for the Risk! podcast with my mom, younger sister, and my friend/her family. I’ve been to a couple concerts around town and generally hanging out with my friends around town, we even started a Dungeons & Dragons campaign!

What has been your biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge for me has been trying to find a job that will let me utilize my degree and everything I learned at UVM.

How are you working on overcoming it?

Always sending in applications and on the lookout for new jobs.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far?

I haven’t had any life lessons come along this summer, it’s been fairly relaxed!

Any advice for your classmates?

None that I feel qualified to give, since it’s only been a few months since graduation.

–

We’ll check in with Matt again later this year and see how he’s doing, and if any life lessons have come knocking on the door!

Speaking of knocking on the door…

Are you local to Burlington? Would you like to get a free lunch, and chat about how your adventures since graduation? Does this post have you feeling like this?

We’d love to take you out!

Click through here and suggest a place to get lunch, and tell us something cool about yourself- Then, we’ll be in touch to make a date.

In last month’s survey, we included a bonus question that asked about the funniest part of your first day at your current job. You submitted a ton of hilarious stories and here are some of our favorites.

This is worth a few minutes of your Friday.

Uhhhh, is Anyone Home?

“Being told to sit and wait for someone to get me, and waiting almost 3 hours with no one in sight.”

“I was the first one in the office, and nobody showed up until hours later. It was a lonely and confusing morning.”

“Absolutely no one introduced themselves until 3 days later.”

“Nobody at the job returned my emails so I showed up a day late”.

First Impressions Matter

“I borrowed a pair of heels from my mom and I could not walk in them and my boss kept asking if I was okay as I got a tour of the office”.

“Introducing myself to the Fed-Ex man thinking he was one of my bosses”.

“During meet-and-greet, as I was getting to know people, I was getting lazier with asking for everyone’s names and positions, so when I get to the last person, I said, “So what do you do here?” He was the founder and CEO. I just asked the Founder of the company what he did here.”

Co-Workers are Like a Big (Dysfunctional) Family

“Everyone at my office was so shocked when they heard what year I was born in– one woman said, I thought people born in 1996 were still in elementary school”!

“When new nurses all said where they were from and listed Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina then when it came to me I said Vermont and someone asked, Did you live on a farm”?

“Our operations managing team thought I was a client and came out to shake my hand then realized I was a new hire…”

“My coworker couldn’t think of the word for photosynthesis so she googled “what is it called when plants eat the sun”.

Nailed it!

“I couldn’t turn on my computer monitor”.

“Lost my ID badge already”.

“In the middle of training, I kicked the power switch on my computer and shut the whole thing down. I had to wait 40 minutes while it turned back on and updated before I was able to get back to the training.”

“Spilling coffee on everything”.

“Printed out three I-9s because I messed up the date then the year”.

“After lunch I went to get my picture taken for my badge – turns out I had pen smeared across my face for the entire day until then…”

“Getting locked out because I thought that the front door to the building was secured since the handle would not turn. Turns out, I just had to pull the door really hard”.

Kids Do the Darnedest Things

“The child I nanny pooped on me after I thought she was done pooping and took off her diaper”.

“One kid pointed to the tail of a horseshoe crab in our touch tank and said “That’s its penis”.”

“I’m a swim coach for the summer and one of my little swimmers lost her tooth. So she handed the tooth to me and hopped in the water like nothing happened”!

Living the Dream

“Walking in and greeting people just to drop off my sister’s lunch because I’m actually still unemployed”.

“This summer I’m in Montana building a yurt with my mother. My first day “on the job”, I met the two literally 60 year old men I will be spending the next solid month with. (They’re living with us too!)”

Last week we asked y’all to take a quick survey and let us know where you’re at in your post college adventure. We love learning more about your adventures.

Beyond that, we think it’s important for you all to see where your classmates are in their journey, because we’re all out in this crazy world together, doing the best we can. Like this guy:

So, let’s find out what you and your classmates are doing, and how many people are in the same spot that you are!

So, without further ado, here are the deets:

Looks like you all want diverse subjects covered here on the blog – and we’re excited to bring that to you each week!

It’s awesome that so many of you have landed a new job already, and we’ll be sharing career advice and stories throughout the year on a variety of topics.

Understandably, the relationships and connections made here at UVM are most important to you guys. That’s why we’ll try to tell as many stories as possible featuring your classmates!

We’ll keep you posted of any events are coming up, to keep those UVM connections alive! For example, we’ll be throwing a party for you in early October, during Alumni Weekend, so stay tuned for the details.

If any of this makes you nervous, don’t worry. When we did this survey with last year’s grads, they were pretty much in the same place you are.

Y’all also submitted some awesomely hilarious stories about your first day at a new job – and we’re compiling them for next week’s post, so stay tuned! It’s going to be a good one.

Once again, thanks for engaging with us! If you’re looking for a way to get more involved, we’re looking for some VIPs to help advise us on content and share feedback!

If you want to get involved, let us know! You can sign up to be an Afterword VIP here:

See you next week for some awesome stories about new jobs, new cities, and some relatable content.

You’ve had your UVM email address for 4+ years now and you may be wondering what’s going to happen with it now that you’ve graduated. Well, nothing is going to happen just yet. But, that doesn’t stop UVM IT from sending scary weird emails.

What the heck is this weirdness?

If you haven’t already, one of the first things you’ll get is a cryptic-looking email from UVM that reads like this:

This is an automated email sent to all recent graduates like yourself that makes you feel like you are reading this:

It is definitely confusing and looks like someone may have hacked your account, but don’t worry, it’s really just a message to let you know that a change is coming to your NetID and email.

Thankfully, we’re here to let you know that you will still be able to use your email address. Your access to your UVM email will eventually expire, but that doesn’t happen for another year.(You may want to start shifting your important communications to a different email account soon – but that’s something for future you to worry about.)

So, now that you know more about your UVM email account, time for a survey!

We are excited to start learning more about you all, and the first way we do that each year on Afterword is through a quick survey – just a few easy questions about what you’re up to right now.

Additionally, we are working on a post about y’alls first day on the job so be sure to answer the last question on the survey to help us out with that project. i.e “no one told me where the bathroom was – it was crazy” – things we can all relate to – or “my first day was perfect, I can’t believe I’m so lucky” – all good stuff.

Best Part: Three of you who fill out the survey will win a pretty sweet UVM t-shirt!

Here at Afterword, we like telling stories. Throughout the year we will bring you a continuing series called My First Year Out about recent graduates (including yourselves), to hopefully inspire and remind you that many UVM graduates take a variety of different paths to success in their first year out.

This week we are featuring one of our favorite check ins from last year’s class, Kristen Roche ’17, who took a chance on Portland, Oregon.

As her story demonstrates, if you network strategically and keep an open mind about what you want to do, you’ll put yourself in the position to do what you have always wanted (and learn more about yourself along the way).

Enjoy Kristen’s story!

Describe your first year out:

My first year of post-grad has been weird.

I can’t believe it’s almost been a full year since graduation. I’ve spent the past year focusing on myself and having fun trying to ‘figure it out.’ Don’t let anyone fool you, though, even if someone looks like they have it figured out…they don’t.

After graduation, I packed everything I own into my tiny car, and did the whole ‘cross-country road trip’ thing. I drove from Vermont to Oregon, to start my new life in Portland.

In my first five months here, I moved five separate times before finally signing a lease, on my own, in downtown Portland. I got a temp job working at Business Oregon, the State’s Economic Development Agency, helping with the Governor’s trade mission to Japan.

After that, I worked as a pizza delivery person for a hot sec…delivering pizzas until 5am at a very punk Portland establishment. Then I was offered a job as a Marketing Assistant for an Engineering firm.

What was your biggest challenge, and how did you overcome it?

I’m really proud of myself for getting a job that challenges me and sparks my interest.

Moving across the country with no connections and zero professional work experience proved to be quite the challenge. You always hear “it’s all about who you know” when trying to find a job, and I knew no one.

I joke around that it’s really impressive I moved to Oregon with nothing and could have easily been flipping burgers at McDonalds (nothing wrong with that) but instead found myself shaking hands with the Governor.

I overcame the struggle by reaching out to anyone and everyone that was pointed in my direction. You cannot let rejection and awkwardness inhibit you from putting yourself out there.

There’s a lot of little details you need to remember; writing thank you notes, making great first impressions, and consistently following through even if your first email gets ignored. It’s important to remember it’s not personal and that people are just busy.

It was an emotional roller coaster, and especially difficult when all of my friends and family were back on the east coast. In order to overcome any challenges, I am learning to embrace the experience and accept that life is supposed to be a little weird right now.

What did you learn from this experience?

I’ve learned that I love drinking tea, I hate Doc Martens. And no matter how hard I try I can’t paint to save my life.

In the bigger picture, I’ve learned that it is SO IMPORTANT to trust your gut and just go for it – whatever that may be. You really grow as a person and figure yourself out when you put yourself in tough situations.

What are you doing now?

Honestly, I’m thriving as I continue to use different gyms for their free-week promos. I’m learning to not spend $50 every weekend on brunch and which skincare routine works best for me.

I’m going out, making new friends and enjoying the fact that random strangers find me interesting and laugh at my dumb jokes.

Professionally, I’m a Marketing Assistant for a civil engineering firm. It’s really cool because marketing is done the same across the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, so I’ve joined a niche community, SMPS, that I believe will immensely help me to develop professionally. I’m being exposed to a variety of different projects, and I enjoy knowing little details of what’s going on around me. I’m really interested in urban development, so it’s a really good fit.

Any advice?

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Put yourself in situations that force you to develop people skills and grow your network. Use your youth and ignorance as an advantage and ask for help, because no one needs it more than a recent college grad with absolutely no experience – plus people inherently want to help.

Take risks now because even if you fail, you’re still young enough to bounce back. Plus, it’s more interesting if you have adventures to tell stories about later.

Think you might be developing your own exciting first-year out story? Know a friend who will be doing something awesome? Click the button below and refer a friend (or yourself).